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Friday, 28 September 2012

Summary of the student strike at NIPER-Ahmedabad

The institute of national importance suffered lack of basic amenities like electricity failure for continuous 25 days, lack of hygienic drinking water and sanitation in the centre. The issues like issues regarding permanent campus and director, constitution of Board of governors, lack of qualified faculty, unjustified stipend cuts, non utilisation of “Sports and gym fees”, had troubled the students continuously for the last five years. Repeated appeals regarding above issues to the concerned authorities fell on deaf ears. That instigated the boycott of the academic schedule by the M.S Pharm students on 18 th September 2012.

The non-violent protest meant to make the authorities aware of the grievances of the students did not show any results until the second consecutive day of the boycott which had the presence of prestigious media houses both from the print media as well as electronic media like Times of India, Indian Express, Ahmedabad Mirror, Divya Bhaskar, TV 9, ETV Gujarati, VTV.

The third day of the protest also went unheard. The irresponsible answers to the Ahmedabad Mirror from the hon’ble project director, Dr. Neeta Shrivastava, that the only concern of the institute was the academics, raised questions about the seriousness of the authorities regarding the addressal of the genuine demands of the students. The college management on its part had tried to suppress the voice by various tactics without any assurance of addressing the concerns of the students. However students maintained a united front against the injustice.

After 84 hours of endurance, the authority still remained unresponsive and never found it apt to come for the open discussion and understand the students’ grievances in person. In the very second formal letter from the institute, the authority declared as the last and final reply and denied further communication. In order to make the deaf authorities aware of our plight, the students were forced to sit non-violently in the scorching sun. Because of the slow response from the authorities, the students barred the passage of the institute with the only intention to make the Hon’ble project director answer to the students’ genuine demands. To this the authority answered by promising to call officials from the Ministry of Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP).

On 22 nd Sept, 2012 at 10:30 am the meeting between MS pharm students and Mr. S. C. Sharma (Director, DoP) started . The officer was briefed on each of the students’ demands.The official was completely unaware of the problems plaguing NIPER, Ahmedabad from past five years. The students took the officer to have a look at the facilities provided by the mentor institute. The college authorities straight away denied to solve the demands. In the presence of the higher authorities the project director and director of the mentor institute declared to close National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER)-Ahmedabad indefinitely. As on today, 28th September 2012 the students await the reply from the DoP and there is still an uncertainty over the future of the students.